


bye bye bluebird

by TobermorianSass



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: First War with Voldemort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-13 04:01:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9105784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TobermorianSass/pseuds/TobermorianSass
Summary: Berlin, the winter of discontent, towards the end of the first wizarding war. The gloves come off everyone's issues, no one trusts anyone and Remus Lupin remains, as ever, undecided.





	

**Author's Note:**

> written for [whitepinkdandelions](http://whitepinkdandelions.tumblr.com) during the [HP Rare Pair Secret Santa](http://rarepairsecretsanta.tumblr.com/) on tumblr. Original fic over [ here](http://rarepairsecretsanta.tumblr.com/post/155085788387/bye-bye-bluebird).
> 
> Shoutout to [Isy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/memorde) for beta'ing this, to [Aich](http://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts) for helping me develop this and also letting me borrow some of the critters from her [HP critters blog](http://themonsterblogofmonsters.tumblr.com) and to [Kate](http://archiveofourown.org/users/malapropism) for helping me iron out the roughness in the ending.
> 
> The title is a riff on one of the less popular verse of the popular song, Bye Bye Blackbird. In the song Bye Bye Blackbird is a goodbye to sadness as the singer greets the bluebird; bye bye bluebird is its exact opposite.
> 
> I am not entirely sure how to describe this except to say you should probably be listening to _This is Hardcore_ or _F.E.E.L.I.N.G. C.A.L.L.E.D. L.O.V.E_ while reading this.

The Café Nachtkrapp was not the place he would have chosen to go if he’d been left to his own devices, but the truth of the matter was he was at rock fucking bottom and in the words of the infamous cliché: beggars couldn’t be choosers. So here he was scrubbing lackadaisically, with a complete lack of will at the oily counter in front of him.

“Voldemort,” Dumbledore had said, blue eyes watching him keenly, “has help from the east. We know this. It’s the _how_ that matters. We must know _how_ it happens – who runs the routes in and out of Berlin – their next moves. Voldemort has been allowed to have his way with his war for far too long. Your work will put a stop to that.”

Three months later and he had imbibed the spirit of the place. Grown into the woodwork. The Café Nachtkrapp was a seedy little joint with years of grime layered into the wooden table tops, the glass windows, the walls. Something about it was infectious. His sweater was torn at the shoulder and in London he might have been arsed to point his wand at it and mutter a _Reparo_ , but the unravelled threads felt right, over here. The same way his frayed fingerless mittens and his slush-stained jeans felt right.  Anywhere else and they’d have fired him again, but the lady who owned this shithole had lost her mind somewhere in the ‘sixties and never got it back. The first time she met him, she stared at him glassy-eyed, the cigarette dangling from her mouth slowly burning to ash, before muttering ‘ _es geht_ ’ and jerking her head towards the counter. She disappeared not long after and Remus was left to hold down the fort alone and with no one to stop his slow descent into the invisible maws of the _esprit_ of – not just the café, but the miserable winter and the strikes and his slush-stained jeans and _everything_. It was just that kind of year.

The last thing he could remember fixing was the Victrola in the corner: the thought of one more day of Vera Lynn grinding out agonizingly at half-speed had made him feel nauseous and it was the action of a bow snapping under pressure, not, perhaps his best thought out decision. These days it ground out an esoteric mix of moogs and sitars, just a fraction too slow to be natural. He considered fixing it once or twice every other day, but something about it being as out of place as everything else in the joint: the mismatched tablecloths, wildflowers in chipped vases, the oddball collection of teacups and saucers: appealed to him. They were all out of time and all out of place and it was just right.

On the slower days he wondered why Berlin’s diplomatic community favoured this watering hole when the much posher _Goldmarsschloss_ did a nice ragout with honest to Merlin fucking red wine next door. On his more charitable days he imagined it was part of a grand tradition: the cafe’s clandestine and seedy nature adding a touch of glamour to otherwise bureaucratic proceedings (no wizard had ever got themselves shot while crossing Checkpoint Charlie). On misanthropic ones, he fancied it was because they were unimaginative idiots caught in a comfortable bureaucratic rut who couldn’t imagine doing it any other way. If the spooks and the watchers and the watchers’ watchers wanted to watch the crossing of Berlin’s Anti-Apparation zones in dirt and discomfort, then bully for them. It made his job simple. Stand around, look unassuming, preferably stoned. Blend. Disappear. Then watch –

– and ignore the fragments of the past year threatening to burst past his carefully constructed defences. Last year was in Sirius’ whisky-slurred words, _much of a muchness._ There was plenty to choose from, plenty of it waiting to rear its ugly head whenever his attention wavered. Cork. Chaos. People screaming. Hands groping in the dark. People doubled over.  The mist, the fog: vaporized Fairy Dust filling his lungs. Psychological warfare at its fucking worst. The mud and the rain and people running and going nowhere. Someone atomized by a strictly illegal ward. A witch shaking on the ground. The _screams_ – terror – someone else’s mind – fear – not his – unimaginable pain – arms pulled out of shape – joints cracking – flesh tearing at the seams – blood, hot and sticky, on his face – clinging to him – his shirt – his sweater – his mouth – the hot, metallic taste of blood in his mouth and _claws_ _and teeth and_ –

It only the part of his brain that kept on ticking, was still going - _you fucking idiot not the fucking wand_ – that stilled his twitching fingers when the door swung open. The Victrola still crackled mournfully in its corner. No consideration for the past, at all. He glanced at his watch which told him he’d lost five minutes again, or: _Mother_. A kind of double-edged mercy sent straight from the past. Mum had always been more of a Genesis kind of a person anyway.

The newest customer was an old familiar face. Dark hair, long but not muggle-ish, high cheekbones and that indefinable air of the aristocratic but somehow _less_ , locked in permanent competition – a pair of fucking _sunglasses_ that added to the impression: of Sirius, but _less_. Less charismatic, less handsome, less impressive – less haunting. The eternal tragedy of the spare.

“Of all the coffee shops in the world,” he said and then let out a harsh laugh, rather than finish that absurd thought.

Regulus simply stared, inscrutable behind the dark sunglasses (tortoiseshell, dated, passé; Sirius would have had something to say about it).

“Remus Lupin,” he drawled, once the apology had almost worked its way to the tip of Remus’ tongue. “You look like shit. Finally kicked you out of England for the crime of being a miserable sod have they?”

“What do you want?”

Another long and uncomfortable pause that made Remus’ fingers itch. Habit, force of will, kept them still, firmly planted on the counter-top.

“That’s the trick, isn’t it?” said Regulus, eventually. “One of those awful things you make here. Something stiff.”

“Sorry –” Remus began.

“Black coffee, Lupin.” Regulus’ drawl grew even more pronounced. “I’m not Sirius. As strong as you can make it.”

Not that he would have dared make the mistake of saying it out loud – but midday drunkenness had always been more Sirius’ style. 1978 was still a blurry haze, lost in the clutter of nights spent in bone-dry bath-tubs and far too much Ogden’s Finest and the war. Somewhere in the clutter: a fragment featuring Sirius in a velvet dressing-gown at midday, glass of champagne in one hand. Then again, it might have been Regulus. Champagne at midday was more Regulus and yet, there was Sirius standing on the staircase, a glass of champagne dangling loosely in his hand as he expounded on something, indelibly printed on his mind. It was entirely possible he had conjured it up out of a fever dream because it felt right, unless Sirius had smuggled champagne into the flat when he wasn’t looking and then refused to share.

“Espresso,” he said, placing the cup on the table in front of Regulus.

“I’m not drunk,” said Regulus, not turning his gaze away from the window.

“That’s two galleons,” said Remus.

Another excruciating silence, as Regulus continued staring out the window.

“It’s gourmet –” Remus began. It was the not the first time he had had the argument. Most people gave in when they tasted it and it kicked them in the back of the head like a graphorn’s hind kick.  

Regulus delved into his robes and carelessly tossed several coins onto the table.

“Don’t you want to know what I am?” he said.

Remus eyed Regulus, one eyebrow raised. There was something almost pitiful about the question. Vera Lynn at half-speed would have set the stage better, but the Vera Lynn was gone: burnt in the grate last week to halve his heating bills. A part of him idly wondered when the owner would return and dish out two months’ worth of pay. Dumbledore was not half as generous as he’d imagined he’d be and there was, alas, no charms to be undone and no Vera Lynn to be played. He reached out and rolled Regulus’ sleeve up, turned his arm over and held it flat against the table.

“That,” he said, jerking his chin at the ugly black lines marring Regulus’ arm. “And that’s five galleons too much you’ve given me.”

Regulus grinned mirthlessly.

“Service charge,” he said.

“Service charge,” Remus repeated, unimpressed.

Regulus indicated the chair opposite with his free hand.

“You could use the money,” he said.

“I –”

The dark sunglasses turned pointedly on the tear on his shoulder and Remus’ fingers itched with the need to touch it – to protest that it was not what it seemed.

Regulus pointed imperiously at the chair again.

“You could ask,” Remus told him, sliding into the chair. There was no escape, he told himself. Just the past, just the inevitable come back to haunt him.

Regulus shrugged carelessly. From somewhere inside his robes he produced a bottle of Ogden’s Finest (1963, a good year) and proceeded to empty a quarter of it into his cup.

“You’d say no,” he said with remarkable astuteness as he stirred his coffee.

“What do you want, Regulus?”

“Cigarette?” Regulus held a silver monogrammed case out to him. “Manners, Lupin. Didn't your mother ever teach you how to make small talk?”

It was not the kind of question he'd grace with any kind of answer. He took the offered cigarette anyway, despite the half-full pack in his coat. The deeper the pocket, the richer and smoother the blend or so the wisdom went.

Regulus lit Remus’ cigarette with the tip of his wand and leaned back, watching.

Remus watched the hands on his watch tick from the corner of his eye. _One_. _Two. Three._ Fifteen excruciating seconds passed while Regulus scrutinized him, illegible behind those ridiculous sunglasses – _and probably blind as a bat_ , he thought wildly, fighting the urge to touch – somewhere, anywhere – his hair, his sweater – just to check everything was fine. And then just as the impulse reached its zenith, Regulus let out a short, sharp laugh. _Hysterical_ , said a tiny voice in Remus’ mind. Regulus  leaned forward and took the cigarette from Remus’ mouth.

It wasn’t an accident – the whisper of touch, of Regulus’ fingertips against his lips.

“You’re watching my brother,” said Regulus, taking a drag on Remus’ cigarette. “Why?”

* * *

His first impulse was to say _why not_.

Once upon a time, he might have been in love with Sirius. This was easiest way of framing the problem. The semantics were complicated, the sensations unruly: the parts were all there, but the strings were missing. The most correct way of saying it was: he could have been in love with Sirius, because Sirius was good at pulling that kind of thought from people’s heads. Once upon a time, he had had all the different parts of love. Inside jokes. The silly boyish artifices of intimacy. The narcissistic longing for attention. The perverse fascination – the watching. It was difficult not to. Sirius came from a world wildly different from the one he knew. If Sirius’ was the kind you’d find in the glossy pages of the _Tatler_ or the classier bits of the red tops then his was the exact opposite: squalid, dreary, ignored; chic only because a certain class of people liked to play tourist. Well it worked both ways. He watched Sirius until he was good at it; until he knew all kinds of absurd facts about Sirius. Sirius, for example, only wore robes from Twilfit and Tattings (fine wool, thread count: super 120). He wore real solid silver cufflinks. He brewed his own shampoos (tea, eggs, glowcust slime). Once, between nineteen seventy-four and the early months of nineteen seventy-five he had even felt something approaching desire as he watched Sirius buttoning his cuffs.

This one took a long time for him to disentangle from the ravening wolf, always rippling underneath his skin and always threatening him with unruly absurdities. Or maybe it was the five year old boy beneath, who was once a member of the insufferable middle classes long before they’d sold their furniture, sold their house, sold everything, gone gone gone: long before the communes and paint-stained artists and high-on-every-kind-of-drug ideologues and the bummed-out burned-out drugged-out musicians drifting in and out of rooms without so much as fucking knocking. Or maybe he’d inadvertently become the spirit of a fucking nation. There were any number of clichés he could have used to describe the sensation, but the fact of the matter was there was a door and the door was shut to him and the five year old boy wanted to stick his fingers in the doorjamb and force it open. There was money and champagne and boys and girls who purred _darling_ at each other and were acid sharp and razor bright and fought like snarling dogs and bitches. That was Sirius all over and Remus, for all of a year and a half, pictured himself without the scar and without the wolf running wild under his skin: gilded armchairs and chaise longues and Sirius, lithe and exotic, squirming pleasurably beneath him. This was what they all wanted, wasn’t it? The good life. The V&A at its most glamourous and exotic made flesh. So yes, in a certain sense he had the beginnings of desire. He wanted to touch and once he had admitted it to himself, it was easier to admit that not only did he want to touch but he _wanted_. He wanted all of it. He wanted to know if there was a limit, if by some strange miracle he could reach the very bottom of the pit or if he took enough out of Sirius, whether Sirius would still be Sirius or if he would be irrevocably, completely changed. What he wanted was a word that was unspeakable. What he wanted was unthinkable. What he wanted was the prickly sensation of Sirius’ knuckles brushing against his for an instant, by accident. What he wanted was a lifetime of watching Sirius fastening his shirt-cuffs or deftly knotting a windsor or a lifetime of Sirius long fingers at his throat knotting his tie for him. What he wanted was an image.

But Sirius was, of course, alive and vital and very definitely not an image, least of all the childish images he’d conjured for himself. By the tail end of nineteen seventy-five he’d retreated from desire back into Sirius watching. He’d wanted, loved and lost. The winter was cold and dreary, Labour was fighting the unions, the economy was shite, inflation fucking all over the place, the music was fantastic and the inevitable had occurred which is to say, Sirius had been Sirius and the world continued to revolve as usual. Sirius had taken, with his usual careless precision, a beater’s bat to the fine glass he’d placed between the two of them as a reminder of their many insurmountable differences. Remus was left with the wreckage, the guilt and the fear. Sirius went on his merry way, as full of insouciance and joie de vivre as before. Remus went back to the commune. Sirius left home and made a big noise about slumming it. Remus read _The Great Gatsby_ that summer and attended his mother’s funeral. He couldn’t find much to cry about, though he bought her lilies for her grave and Lily clung to him because he wasn’t entirely sure how to begin clinging to another person for dear life.

He stood there at the grave, peering down at the dark coffin and did not picture the drowned body or his father’s guilt stricken face across from him. He was in the middle of far too important a realization to let his mind play tricks with him. The realization was this: Sirius went on his merry way, he was the one left standing in the wreckage when it was over: no bleeding heart, just the gloomy realization that his was not to question, do or die but to watch and when you came down to it, that was kind of fucking sad.

* * *

He took the cigarette back, fingers brushing against Regulus’ – and that was not an accident either.

“Why d’you want to know?” he asked Regulus.

“I thought you lot stuck together – Dumbledore and friends –”

“So who’s the spy?” Remus tossed the question out without much hope of an answer. His questions never were answered. “Who’s the fucking mole?”

“Are you going to take me to Dumbledore?”

“No,” said Remus. “Do you want me to?”

Regulus considered this. Or at least, he supposed Regulus was considering it. What he saw was Regulus stretch his hands out palm downwards and study his fingers, still as inscrutable behind those dark glasses.

“Is it true?” said Regulus, with half a leer. “What they say about werewolves?”

Half, because James Potter and Sirius Black had him dead beat in that department and on a good day Remus could match that leer muscle for muscle. He gestured rudely in reply.

“I’m curious,” Regulus continued. “What did Sirius see in you?”

“D’you ever think maybe your obsession with your brother’s a little bit fucking sick?” Remus asked him. “I never can tell if you want to be him or shag him.”

“I mean,” said Regulus, waving a hand in his direction, “you wear torn sweaters – why’d Sirius ever want to fuck that?”

“It goes deeper than that doesn’t it?” Remus continued. “It’s like you never grew up and you’re still two kids fighting over the shiny toy mummy and daddy bought you – and if you can’t have what he has, neither can he. So you take your wand to it and hope he’ll be nothing –”

“You know what I think?” said Regulus far too loudly. Strained. “I think you like doing this because you don’t like thinking about the truth.”

Remus took the cigarette out of his mouth, eyed it and then deliberately tapped the ash off its end before answering Regulus’ original question.

“You see, it’s like this Regs: when a boy and a boy like each other very much, they buy a flat in Shepherd’s Bush,” he said with relish. “And they fuck each other senseless -”

“Sirius is watching you, you know,” Regulus drawled, cutting in rudely. The sudden tenseness in his jaw belied the apparent indifference of his tone.

There was very little resembling indifference between Regulus and Sirius anyway.

“I know,” he said.

“What are you going to do about it?”

“ _Do_ ,” said Remus, watching smoke curl away into nothing. “What do _you_ want me to do about it?”

Regulus stood. There was no subtlety this time in the way Regulus allowed his thumb to brush against Remus’ mouth when he pried the cigarette from Remus’ mouth and stubbed it out on the ashtray. There was nothing subtle either, in the way that Regulus paused or in the way Regulus kissed. His mouth was far too hot. Fever-hot. His pulse was unsettled, unsteady: beating like the fluttering wings of a Flitterby trapped in a bell jar. Fever-hot and too dry, far too dry. Remus kissed him back anyway.

“I’m not one of those shiny toys,” he said, when Regulus finally pulled back, warm breath ghosting along Remus’ lips, along his jaw and far far too close.

Regulus grinned.

“I know,” he said.

* * *

Remus proceeded methodically. He flipped the sign around to _closed_. The owner might have had something to say, but the owner was gone too far down the rabbit hole. Gone. Gone somewhere. Where? Anywhere. He had two months’ worth of pay pending and he couldn’t bring himself to care. Time was immaterial here. It came and went and the wall outside remained immovable, immutable, unchangeable. The watchers, if they arrived, could line themselves up under the eaves of the cafe and turn up the collars of their robes to keep their ears warm. He locked the door and pulled the blinds down. Regulus would be undressing one floor above. Remus locked the till and tried not to picture it: Regulus shrugging off his fine-wool robes and folding them away in impeccably neat squares. The ugly black lines criss-crossing his left arm. Regulus’ shirt on his floor. He shuttered the windows one by one, leaving only the one by Regulus’ abandoned table – coffee cold and unappealing in the stained cup – open.

He sat down and lit himself another cigarette and waited. Regulus could wait. The virtue of patience and all that fucking jazz.

It wasn’t long before Sirius appeared. He sailed in like a whirlwind – flung the door open and strode in in high dudgeon – and the room seemed to disappear.

All spaces, all things warped themselves around Sirius.

“ _You_ ,” said Sirius.

Remus sighed and held his cigarette out to him. “I waited for you.”

Sirius eyed him dubiously as he came over and took the cigarette.

“Your brother’s persuasive,” Remus continued.

“This wasn’t what I meant when I said ‘you know what, it’d be fun if we could shag around’,” said Sirius. He held the cigarette back out. “You couldn’t have known I was here.”

“Penzance, wasn’t it?” said Remus, waving it aside. “Where Dumbledore sent you?”

Sirius held his gaze evenly. “I finished _my_ work. I don’t know if I could tell Dumbledore the same about you.”

“We’re on a break, Sirius,” Remus said sharply. It was easier than saying: I think you’re a spy and you think I’m a spy and one of us is wrong.

“We’re fighting a _war_ , Remus. In case that escaped you.”

“And?”

“And,” Sirius gestured expansively. “You could just ask, you know. I’m not – that – whatever you seem to think I am.”

Remus hummed sceptically.

“I won’t apologize.”

That was Sirius all over for you. The corner of his mouth twitched despite himself.

“No,” said Remus, grinning tiredly at him. He stood and lightly kissed Sirius’ cheek. “I’m going upstairs. You can come along, if you like.”

He turned to leave, stopped only by Sirius’ fingers tightly gripping his wrist. Hot and vital and urgent, fingernails digging into his skin. He watched the muscles in Sirius’ jaw working, his mouth working silently around words too much to voice. _Much of a muchness_ , the words echoed in his ears, still as alive and ridiculous as when Sirius first slurred them into the crook of his neck. _This year’s been a much of a muchness_.

They’d broken off around the morning after that.

And then just as suddenly, Sirius turned away and slipped silently into one of the chairs leaving Remus bereft, wrist suddenly unbearably cold, and alone.

* * *

Regulus kissed with a feverish and demanding hunger: an unanswerable question though the correct term, he believed, was insatiable appetite. Or maybe, to suit the times: mutually assured destruction. He fucked Regulus – and it was as strange and alien and remote as if they were only bodies and tools and instruments in their own mutually assured pleasure and as if there was no unspoken pact between them or as if there was no one downstairs listening to them moan, listening to the sounds of the bed creaking between them. He fucked him into the bed – and Regulus was hidden away behind his sunglasses and as Remus dug his fingers into his hips and thrust until the headboard slammed against the wall once, twice again and again in time to the movements of his hips, he thought of Sirius and Sirius’ fingers around his wrist, how there was something essentially sweet and alive in the way Sirius kissed, that Sirius waited for him to give him the cigarette, that Sirius had held his wrist, that Sirius’ lips twitched so slightly as unspeakable words lingered on his tongue, of Sirius’ dark eyes almost vulnerable and almost unshuttered, of spite and anger and the many many things they had said to each other and of Sirius’ nails digging into his wrist and the heat and the warmth of his body and of the insurmountable distance between him and Regulus and of Sirius’ grand revelation and of the phantom sting and phantom heat of Sirius’ hand wrapped around his wrist until Regulus was moaning and he was moaning and he was coming, he was coming, he was crawling up the stairs and Sirius was coming up the stairs and they were going, they were coming – Remus was there, almost there and Regulus’ fingers were twisted in his hair and he thought, one last thought before the world turned to blissful white static: and that was that Sirius at least, the bastard, had never tried to pull his hair out by the roots.

* * *

Regulus kept his sunglasses on through it all.

* * *

At some point, he supposed, Sirius must have come up the stairs and watched them at it. When they were done and he’d leaned back and summoned himself a packet of cigarettes (they flew out from underneath a pile of unwashed robes on the floor), Sirius was there, silently watching him from the doorway, an inquiring expression crossing his features when Remus looked at him.

If Regulus had noticed, lying there next to Remus, forearm half-draped across his eyes he didn’t show it. Remus moved to the side. Sirius slid in next to him fully clothed and settled right there in the crook of his arm like it was fucking Shepherd’s Bush two months and four shags ago. It was instinct, he told himself: sliding his arm around Sirius and Sirius’ head drooping onto his shoulder.

“You could remove your boots,” said Remus, holding the cigarette out to him.

“No,” said Sirius, unconcerned. “I can’t.”

Remus glared at him but Sirius – Sirius took the cigarette, drew and exhaled unbothered by Remus’ disapproval.

“Hello brother dearest,” said Regulus. “I take it you enjoyed the show.”

“It’d be better if you learned how to fuck,” drawled Sirius. “Instead of lying on your back like a frigid pureblood bitch.”

“Don’t project – I’m not the one getting fucked like a bitch by my boyfriend on the regs,” said Regulus. “ _Brother dearest_.”

“I’m not his boyfriend,” Remus mumbled into the cigarette he’d taken back from Sirius.

“I’m not your brother,” snapped Sirius.

“Really,” said Regulus dryly. “We just happen to share surnames and a standing offer to join the Dark Lord. Not to mention ten centuries’ worth of Black family madness. Disingenuousness doesn’t suit you, _brother dearest_.”

“Do you like it?” said Sirius. “Being fucked around by a coward who won’t show his face in public and his troll-brained lackeys?”

“I’m getting some, at least,” said Regulus. “Unlike you. Your own boyfriend’s not interested in you anymore.”

“I’m not his boyfriend,” Remus mumbled.

“Maybe you should get mummy to teach you about the birds and the bees again,” said Regulus. “Instead of prudishly closing your ears like the frigid bitch you really are – that _is_ why the two of you broke off, isn’t it?”

“Some of us have more important things to do with our lives,” Sirius said loftily. “Like not murdering people while following a certified lunatic, for example.”

“Better than pretending to be a goody two shoes Gryffindor trumpeting about his own virtue when he’s used his boyfriend to commit almost bloody murder and can’t get him in the sack anymore,” said Regulus, the beginnings of a self-satisfied smirk creeping along the edges of his mouth. “ _Brother dearest_.”

Remus could pinpoint the moment the switch flicked and the air around Sirius grew charged with a vicious violent energy. The way Sirius tensed next to him. A rat or a predator? He couldn’t decide. The line between the two was always hair-thin with Sirius. The scene unspooled in glorious and excruciating slow-motion: Sirius suddenly diving across and snatching Regulus’ sunglasses, Sirius stomping across the room to the window, Regulus hurling himself out of the bed, the window, the sunglasses flying out into the eerily silent Berlin afternoon and clattering to the pavement below, Regulus’ long unnatural howl of rage, him and Sirius falling to the floor in a tangle of limbs and boyish swearing.

Remus drew shakily on his cigarette. Silent laughter crawled its way up his chest and wracked his body as Sirius wrestled Regulus to the floor and pinned him there and shouted: _fucking look at me you fucking bastard_ \- and then - _mother of fucking Merlin_.

“Fairy Dust, Sirius,” he said, picturing it: Regulus’ red-rimmed eyes and his dilated pupils – twice their ordinary size. “Y’could smell it a mile away.”

“Fairy Dust,” said Sirius derisively. “The little idiot.”

“Spare me the act –”

“Of all the unimaginative ways to kill yourself,” Sirius said, viciously sweet. “ _Brother dearest_.”

“Piss off,” said Regulus, voice unnaturally high. “All right? You have _no idea_ – what – and I’m not _that –_ you don’t know a fucking thing – I had to know all right? – after Cork – and –”

“And?”

“None of your business,” snapped Regulus. Then wearily, “Sn –someone ( _Snape_ , Sirius said derisively, again) said don't but – what do _you_ know? You have no idea what the Dark Lord could do to you – what the Dark Lord does – you'll all be gone and you won't know what's coming – you don't know what's coming to you – but you'll get it – we’ll all get it and we'll all be bloody thankful for it.”

Somewhere in the disjointed fragments, Remus thought, lay the ramblings of a boy trying to convince himself into believing whatever it was he was telling himself.

“That doesn’t mean _shite_ , Regs –”

Regulus began to laugh: a shrill hysterical sound that slid uncannily up and away into silence.

“You don’t know,” said Regulus. “You don’t fucking know.”

* * *

The news came three months later, two months after Regulus’ disappearance. Sirius announced it in a velvet dressing gown in a rich maroon while Remus leaned back against the pillows, close enough to smell the remains of last night's brandy on Sirius, close enough to feel the warmth radiating off him. _He_ was wearing nothing but his old tatty sweater, white cotton underwear and a pair of mismatched socks - one red, one white. The tear on his shoulder was a centimeter longer and Remus studied it faithfully every morning, then did nothing: his wand was too far away, it would unravel soon anyway, the words were difficult, he was too tired, he had two months worth of pay waiting for him in Berlin. _Later_ , he told himself. Later. Sirius slid his arm around Remus' shoulders so he could see it for himself. The news was tucked away on page thirteen of _The Prophet_ : one tiny paragraph sandwiched between a dreary story on the Fawley land dispute and the ICW’s latest Floo regulations.  _The body of Regulus Black was found by a trawler in the North Sea late last night. The funeral will be at 5 P.M. today evening_.

“Poor Regs,” said Sirius, running a hand idly through Remus’ hair. “Poor little idiot.”

 _He knew_ , he wanted to say. Regulus knew. He had already lost. 

Remus turned his head into Sirius’ shoulder, breathing in the smell of freshly laundered robes instead.

“Poor little Regs,” he said. “Better like this, though.”

Sirius pressed a kiss to his temple and hummed agreement.

In a month, thought Remus, in a month it would be time to leave again but for now – for now he pictured a pair of dark sunglasses and a body almost limp beneath him and felt, for a moment, almost like fixing his sweater.

**Author's Note:**

> "Of all the coffee shops in the world" owes its provenance to _Casablanca_. "Much of a muchness" is from Lewis Carroll.
> 
> The christmas hit single in 1979 or 'the radio song' as remus puts it was _Another Brick In The Wall Pt II_. The next track on _The Wall_ LP is _Mother_. 
> 
> Fairy Dust as I imagine it works like wizard LSD, which means you can put someone else's pensieve memories in it and experience their feelings to either good or disastrous effect but exaggerated because of the hallucinogenics.
> 
> Come say hello on [tumblr](http://tobermoriansass.tumblr.com).


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